Dandruff is caused by lipid (fat) autoxidation damage to scalp cells, resulting in their proliferation and then falling off. Rancid, musty hair and scalp odors are also caused by autoxidation of lipids in the scalp and on the hair. It can be effectively controlled by shampoos containing antioxidants, such as selenium sulfide (found in Selsun […]
Read more Male Pattern Baldness and What You Can Do About It V
Pulling hairs just short of breaking them or plucking hairs can stimulate new growth, though its effects are not very impressive. Such powerful skin irritants as cayenne pepper or, even more powerful and effective, dinitrochlorobenzene or dinitrochlorophenol, often cause hair regrowth when rubbed into the scalp. This is probably at least partly due to histamine […]
Read more Male Pattern Baldness and What You Can Do About It IV
Inositol, a B vitamin, is a natural sugar known as muscle sugar and is a cell membrane stabilizer and antioxidant which has a protective effect on hair follicles, perhaps by protecting them from membrane damage caused by oxidized cholesterol in the scalp, or from destruction by clock-triggered lysosomes (proteolytic enzymes). Lysosomal membranes are principally comprised […]
Read more Male Pattern Baldness and What You Can Do About It III
Many use topical estrogens and androgens to help control their own case of male pattern baldness. They found that the use of the estrogens alone tends to lead to scalp fragility and tenderness, whereas the androgens alone lead to scalp acne. To avoid these side effects, people use a 1 to 15 mixture of estradiol […]
Read more Male Pattern Baldness and What You Can Do About It II
… Just as the pigment of the hair is destroyed by phagocytes, so also the atrophy of other organs of the body, in old age, is very frequently due to the action of devouring cells which I have called macrophages. —Elie Metchnikoff, The Prolongation of Life (1908) Male pattern baldness is an example of an […]
Read more Male Pattern Baldness and What You Can Do About It I
Although male pattern balding isnot necessarily tied to old age, it is very definitely due to a clock. If you transplant hairs from the balding area onto another part of the head, these hairs fall out right on schedule with the others remaining in the balding area. If you transplant hairs from nonbalding areas to […]
Everyone is familiar with the so-called “annual” plants which live only a few months, from the time when they sprout, until, after the production of seed, death comes to them naturally. … Natural death can be postponed if the plant be prevented from seeding. —Elie Metchnikoff, The Prolongation of Life (1908) Do DNA genetic clocks […]
We cannot retard senescence or reverse its direction, unless we know the nature of the mechanisms which are the substratum of duration [basis of longevity]. —Alexis Carrel, Man the Unknown, 1935 In this set of posts, we take an overall view of what we are up against in the way of aging mechanisms. There are […]